Earth and Air
by JestaAriadne
Summary: "Who are you?" England demands, "and what have you done with Feliks?" Poland laughs. "Silly! It's me!" There's this picture of Poland all in Air Force blue...


_**Notes:** I have no concept of the whole 2ptalia thing (and... not much interest...) BUT I had an idea for the alternate Poland colour-scheme as a creation of his own mind._

* * *

"It was not to do with politics," Lithuania explains when America presses him, "it's more… a _human_ side thing, I think. Um. A mental thing, or a sort of coping mechanism. But since we're not human… our bodies take things more literally."

"So that's why his eyes…?"

"That's how I understand it."

"Has anything like that ever happened to you?"

"Has it ever happened to _you_?"

* * *

Everyone has more than one side to their character. Poland is no different in that respect. But-and it's nothing to do with politics, it's personal, it's the sort of thing could happen to a human-with time and trauma, the two sides have become distinct, codified, named and alive in their own right. Only, because he's not a real human, but rather a physical manifestation of an abstract idea, _in extremis_ these ideas manifest physically too.

-England stares. "Who are you?" he demands, furious and frozen to the core, _and what have you done with Feliks?_ "Silly!" Poland laughs. "It's _me_!" And it is, but it can't be, because his eyes are changed: calamitously blue, wide bright and empty as the sky at the outbreak of war. His eyes look like _France's_ , England thinks, but there is none of France's poised sorrow-like France's face with something missing; like Poland's own face, with something missing. It could be pity.

 _Of-the-Earth_ and _of-the-Air:_ that's how Feliks thought of them, when he thought of them. Everyone has more than one side to their character, and these are his. He named them.

This airy, light spirit, he jokes inappropriately, he laughs at _everything_. You cannot keep him on topic. You cannot, it seems, hurt him so's he'd notice.

When he takes over, he doesn't despise the other part of himself; but does find him helpless, and rather boring.

He of the Earth is quieter, kinder, honest and loyal unto death. He loves his religion for the tradition and the rhythm of the words and the shelter of familiar places. He loves God for His love. His heart breaks for his childhood home, and he wants to be held. He remembers contentment in lazy golden afternoons, dreaming time and work away with his back against an apple tree. Maybe he loved contentment and comfort too well. He saw the best in other people, and believed things will work themselves out in the end.

Airy, he was rapturous, enraptured; he sang and he prayed like a mystic. He loved God for His splendour and inscrutability, and saw His face clear and fleeting through gates of blossom and starshine, and called to Him in a language no one else could understand. He had no home. He takes unreasoning delight in instants, in wordplay, in rainbows in oil and broken glass. He laughs at everyone's misfortune, including his own. He doesn't consider or particularly care about the motives of other people and he does not make plans.

Everyone has more than one side to their character. Time was when Poland did too, when he was both of them at once, when he was Feliks.

But without the Air in his soul, after all, when he was mown down and scattered he never could have gotten up again, so… And what value have you these days if you don't have the stomach for a little blood?

When it comes to it, Feliks-of-the-Air well he does not bury the other one; no, he ascends. (And he'd leave the corpse rotting on the pavement, quite without malice-he has no hate, but has no love either; a lack of fear is a lack of memory.)

He puts on Air Force blue and smiles and learns to make puns in English. He is a laughing angel of death at 20 000 feet. He brings cheer to his comrades and saves their lives. He survives.

Feliks-of-the-Earth inside is weeping on the scorched ground under the apple tree.

* * *

 _ **Notes:** normal!Poland is a combination of the two sides, not just the Earth side, obviously. Guy's got a nuanced personality, that's the point! _

_...It would be nice if this was a big war story, with Feliks' 'splitting' like this something running through it... but I've just written some ideas..._

 _And someday perhaps I will branch out from angsty "poetic" apotheoses of Poland... uh. That is to say I am aware I'm doing this, but I am really enjoying using words super-dramatically ^.^_

 _(fire/water based scribbles about nyo!po coming soon!)_


End file.
